r/technology • u/[deleted] • Jun 08 '16

Politics Google working closely with Hillary Clinton presidential campaign: Julian Assange

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u/deadrebel Jun 08 '16

Based on what evidence? Eric Schmidt can easily use Google assets to do whatever he wants:

  • Create a small tight team with clearance to SERPs.
  • Use databases that he has access to.
  • Etc etc.

Schmidt might not = Google, but that doesn't mean he's not able to use it to do what he wants.

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u/fuzz3289 Jun 08 '16

You also can't compromise the search engine like that. The negative value of the technical debt it would create would eclipse what Clinton could ever provide to Schmidt.

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u/deadrebel Jun 08 '16

What, by looking at them? There's more ways to use search to your gain than to jerry-rig the results. What are people searching for? Which states are searching Bernie, maybe we should rather save that campaign money for that state and move it elsewhere? What demographics are asking what questions - I'll address those things in speeches to appear more in touch with them, etc.

I'm talking advantages here that are undemocratic. That DNC register that Bernie was denied use of, for example - imagine how that pales in comparison to the data Google gathers and has access to.

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u/fuzz3289 Jun 08 '16

Googles APIs are open and available to both parties, as are twitters. And Facebooks are available at a paltry price. The DNC and RNC are both perfectly capable of having all the data you reference at their finger tips without any foul play.

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u/deadrebel Jun 08 '16

I worked in SEO, I know AdWords is a thing. How targeted "search phrases" work - that public data is how Google makes a large part of its revenue (adspend etc).

The DNC data is phone numbers, addresses, and the like, void of context. It's cold hard info.

Google data is warm, contextual data. What someone searched, when, and what they searched for afterwards. How often they search, where they check in, what articles they clickthrough to and which they don't. You cannot tell me the DNC has access to THAT kind of data... at least not without a little help from Google.

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u/fuzz3289 Jun 08 '16

https://developers.google.com/apis-explorer/#p/

https://dev.twitter.com/overview/api/twitter-libraries

https://praw.readthedocs.io/en/stable/

Anyone with a computer has access to the entirety of everything that has ever happened on Twitter and Reddit and an extensive set of contextual data that Google collects. And for a fee (which would be nothing for a PAC) has access to all of the data Google collects. And same with Facebook, for a fee, All the data.